Mrs. Harris helped her to a chair. A few minutes after the
expert injection, Mary's mind struggled back from its core of
silence.
'Mary, dear, I'm sorry. I haven't been watching you closely
enough.'
'Oh, Mrs. Harris...' Mary's chin trembled. 'I hope it
never happens again.'
'Now, child, we all have to go through these things when
we're young. You're just a little slower than the others in
acclimatizing to the drugs. You'll be fourteen soon and the
medicop assures me you'll be over this sort of thing just as
the others are.'
Mrs. Harris dismissed the class and when they had all
filed from the room, she turned to Mary.
'I think, dear, we should visit the clinic together, don't
you?'
'Yps, Mrs. Harris.' Mary was not frightened now. She was
just ashamed to be such a difficult child and so slow to ac-
climatize to the drugs.
As she and the teacher walked down the long corridor to
the clinic, Mary made up her mind to tell the medicop what
she thought was wrong. It was not herself. It was her hypoal-
ter, that nasty little Susan Shorrs. Sometimes, when Susan had
the body, the things Susan was doing and thinking came to
Mary like what the ancients had called
had never liked this secondary ego whom she could never
really know. Whatever was wrong, it was Susan's doing. The
filthy creature never took care of her hair, it was always so
messy when Susan shifted the body to her.
Mrs. Harris waited while Mary went into the clinic.
Mary was glad to find Captain Thiel, the nice medicop, on
duty. But she was silent while the X-rays were being taken,
and, of course, while he got the blood samples, she concen-
trated on being brave.
Later, while Captain Thiel looked in her eyes with the bright
little light, Mary said calmly, 'Do you know my hypoalter,
Susan Shorrs?'
The medicop drew back and made some notes on a pad
before answering. 'Why, yes. She's in here quite often too.'
'Does she look like me?'
'Not much. She's a very nice little girl...' He hesitated,
visibly fumbling.
Mary blurted, 'Tell me truly, what's she like?'
Captain Thiel gave her his nice smile. 'Well, I'll tell you a
secret if you keep it to yourself.'
'Oh, I promise.'
He leaned over and whispered in her ear and she liked
the clean odour of him. 'She's not nearly as pretty as you
are.'
Mary wanted very badly to put her arms around him and
